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Opening Statement by
His Excellency Dr. Thaksin Shinawatra
Prime Minister of Thailand
at the Inaugural Meeting of
the Asia Cooperation Dialogue
Cha-Am, Thailand, 19 June 2002
Distinguished Ministers,
Ambassadors, Members of the Diplomatic Corps,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A new chapter of history begins today here in this room, at this distinguished gathering to mark the inauguration of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue or the ACD. This is a gathering of Ministers from every region of Asia, which is, in itself, already a historic Asian event. But, more important than that, what this gathering is going to chart for these two days will go a long way as a beginning of a new chapter of world cooperation to turn diversity into mutual benefit.
The first meeting of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue or the ACD, which we are launching today, will become the foundation stone for a new framework of cooperation for more than half of the worlds population. It will bring about a new cooperation to maximize our strength and potential, a new cooperation to ensure the optimum use of our rich resources and culture, a new cooperation to turn diversity into mutual benefits, a new cooperation that opens up new opportunities for Asia, a new cooperation to help alleviate our hundreds of millions of people from their poverty and suffering, a new cooperation to fulfill our people with the sense of Asian belonging and, most important of all, a new cooperation for peace and prosperity for all the peoples and the nations of Asia.
In the 13th Century, when the famous Venetian merchant, Marco Polo, set upon his historic silk road journey to the Orient, his expedition revealed to the world how rich in culture, civilization and resources this continent of Asia has to offer to the world. In the 15th Century, the Great Chinese mariner, Admiral Cheng Ho sailed from China to many places throughout the South Pacific, the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf and Africa. Since then, trade between Europe and Asia has flourished and Asian history has become one of the most fascinating chapters of world history.
The post 19th Century Asia saw the political configuration of this great continent gradually reshaping, following the colonization and decolonization of several countries in our region. But the fastest changes in Asia took place in the latter half of the 20th Century, which saw the emergence of some Asian countries as independent nations and some as world economic powers. The two decades of the 80s and the 90s saw Asia in its heyday. Economically, those decades were the best time ever for several Asian countries. Then, Asia was caught off guard by the sudden 1997 financial crisis which was followed by the collapse of the grandeur of the Asian dream. The September 11 incident added further economic hardship. But this is the 21st Century. As Asia is recuperating from that crisis, it needs to renew its sense of purpose and commitment to forge a new framework of collaborative network in order to build its strength, potential and confidence.
The launching of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue will serve, therefore, as a confidence-building process for Asian countries, a confidence that is to be built upon the Spirit of Bandung initiated by Former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and a confidence that is based upon Prime Minister Koizumis goal to create a community that acts together and advances together. This new cooperation will also serve well to complement President Jiang Zemins highly commended initiative of the Boao Forum. In time, we are confident that the ACD will become a catalyst to further support both individual Asian countries and the existing Asian regional groupings with strength from within.
Distinguished Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Here in Asia, we are in a continent with more than half of the worlds population. Here in Asia, we are in a continent where resources are abundant yet people remain in poverty. Here in Asia, we are a continent where human potentials are high but remain largely untapped. And here in Asia, we are a continent where technologies and skills excel but do so unevenly among nations. This is Asia. Despite its diversity, however, the region has created several regional groupings of nations both intra-regional and inter-regional for their own common good, stretching from the Gulf of Persia on the one end to the Pacific Rim on the other. Yet Asia still lacks an exclusively region-wide forum to share Asias common goals.
There are many reasons why such a forum is needed to promote greater intra-Asian cooperation. Without closer cooperation, we in Asia are bound to compete among ourselves for the benefit of the rest of the world, selling our goods and labour in ruinous competition with each other to serve global markets.
At the present time, Asia has not been able to forge the basic understanding and the will to use our dynamism, our talents, our own markets and skills in order to create mutual benefit from our combined potential, either as individual nations or as a region on the world scene.
Asia therefore needs to forge a common strategy to build from our vast resources of manpower, wealth of skills, and dynamism in order to overcome the challenges of the new century. We must learn to trust, confide and work together for our mutual benefits, not viewing one another as competitors, but rather as partners and allies.
Allow me, at this point, to offer an interesting statistic. Asia is a continent that is rich in natural beauty and cultural sites. And yet the combined income of our entire continent from tourist arrivals amounts to just over 55 billion U.S. dollars, while the tourism revenues from only two European countries combined, namely France and Italy, totals over 57 billion U.S. dollars. Such a figure is absolutely fascinating, and we should congratulate both France and Italy on this tremendous achievement. At the same time, however, we also have to look at ourselves and consider why we cannot combine and make better use of our great diversity of beauty, culture, and vibrancy to at least equal the achievement of the two countries.
The issue here, therefore, is to enhance our existing assets and abilities in order to make Asia more vibrant and dynamic. The issue here is for Asia to enrich the world with our resources, products, and services. The key words for all of us should be: how to Enhance, Combine, and Co-manage our resources, skills and culture for the good of Asia and the rest of the world.
If Asia is to realize its full potential in the present globalized trends of the world economy, is it therefore not high time Asia adopted a forum where Asian nations could share their commonalities and put up confidence-building measures to tackle the problems of poverty, natural and human resources, and technological progress? Sustainable wealth across the Asian Continent can only be achieved with cooperation across the entire continent. The Asia Cooperation Dialogue is to do just that for what the Asian people need.
Through the Asia Cooperation Dialogue, we have in mind a stronger Asia that can compete and contribute more effectively to the World economy. We have in mind an Asian region that can maintain a self-supporting system to cushion ourselves from external shocks, be they political or economic. We have in mind a region where all member countries work to complement one anothers comparative advantages as well as mitigating disadvantages. We have in mind a region where information and knowledge are shared and countries work closely together through collaborative networks. We have a vision of Asia as a continent that is the most desirable place to live, to travel and to do business in. We have a vision of a strong and self-confident Asia. We have a vision of a stronger Asia for the best of the world.
Distinguished Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Before proceeding further, permit me to cite a passage from a very interesting book entitled Next: Trends for the Near Future. In many ways, this passage captures what this meeting is all about. And I quote:
The emergence of Asian-consciousness, and with it Asian confidence and creativity, will be a key factor in the maturing of the region. Consumers in Asia, and indeed around the world, would have no hesitation buying electronic goods or domestic appliances made in Asia, but the same cannot be said for intellectual copyright products. Until the world embraces the idea that innovations of all kinds can come from this continent, Asians are unlikely to lead the world in areas considered creative. The turning point will come when Vietnamese soap operas top the TV ratings in Indonesia, when Indonesian pop stars play to packed stadiums in Thailand, when a Thai fashion designer sells clothes like hotcakes in Shanghai and when a Chinese feature film breaks box office records across Asia.
End of quote.
I must emphasize that these examples are not my own. However, the passage does drive home the need for all us in the region to develop a sense of Asian consciousness, and to have the confidence to release our immense creative talents for the benefit of the region and the world.
Distinguished Ministers,
To put the ACD in perspective so that such vision of Asia can be translated into mission, a few main objectives need spelling out for consideration:
First, the ACD aims to provide a non-institutionalized arrangement for the exchange of ideas and experiences. As a region-wide dialogue, the ACD will complement existing cooperative frameworks, and will create synergy among bilateral, multilateral, sub-regional and regional strategic partnerships in the areas of common interests. Definitely, there is a missing link, which is now being filled.
Second, the ACD will help to improve national and regional capabilities so as to make Asia a strong partner for other regions. Asia needs to work together to manage the adversary impacts of globalization. How countries manage the impacts of globalization will determine their ability to survive and to prosper. We can do so by utilizing Asias unique home-grown ingenuity and enhancing our complementary strengths for international competitiveness. The ACD must foster an enabling environment for development. The Asian countries must do our utmost to promote sustainable development within our countries and capitalize on our complementary strengths to address the growth challenge within our region.
Third, the ACD will serve as a forum for Asian countries to exchange views with one another in a frank manner on international trends and developments which have a direct bearing on Asia, and to which Asia should and can make meaningful contribution.
I wish to emphasize that in strengthening Asias capacity through the ACD process, the aim is not to create any donor/recipient relationship but to enhance one another. We seek to pool our individual strengths together to make a stronger Asia. Each country has diverse strengths of its own, which could be contributed to any field of cooperation they are best at. Each will share its commonalities to make all of us stronger partners in our own intra-Asian relations. But, how these objectives may evolve and what nature the Asia Cooperation Dialogue may take in the future depend upon your discussion today. I leave the future of the ACD in your good hands, with full trust and confidence.
Distinguished Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Allow me to offer a few interesting facts and figures about our continent.
Asia is the worlds largest and most diverse continent, covering about 30 percent of the land area on Earth. Asia is home to over 3 billion people, over half of the worlds population. The population size makes Asia the largest market in the world.
Asia is the fastest growing economy and accounts for a quarter of the worlds exports and global GDP. Our economies together represent one third of the global economy. Our total combined international reserves amount to over one million million U.S. dollars, over half of the worlds foreign exchange reserves.
Asia is also abundant with natural resources, from gold and spices to natural gas and petroleum. Presently, Asia serves as one of the Worlds most important bases for food production. A wide variety of world class goods and services are produced in Asia. Asia is a growing market for capital goods, technology, consumer products, semi-finished goods, and raw materials. Our market continues to expand with improvements in income levels and development growth. Asia also has great assets in terms of human resources, skills, and home-grown technical know-how.
On the cultural side, Asia is characterized by great ethnic and cultural diversity. All Great Leaders of the World Religions were to have Asian origin. In antiquity, Asia has been a land of great cultural civilization and richness. In the present day, the Asian culture remains cherished with great admiration.
In this context, therefore, Asia is an amazingly rich continent. Given the size of the population; the size of foreign reserves; the availability of assets; and the wide ranging and plentiful natural resources, Asia should be a continent of more prosperous nations. But in reality, poverty amongst our people remains one of the major problems many countries seek to overcome. Poverty makes it harder for each Asian nation to be a strong trade partner between ourselves. Poverty makes it harder for Asian nations to be strong trade partners with the rest the world. Poverty weakens Asia despite its abundant potentials.
In this regard, the ACD must be a capacity building process to strengthen Asia as a whole, to enable Asia to best utilize its potential in assets and resources, to add value chain to its products, to create an economy of speed to maximize its economy of scale. The ACD must enable Asia to create more wealth for Asian nations, wealth that will reduce poverty to the minimum, if not completely eradicate it; wealth that makes Asian nations a more mature market for intra-Asian trade as well as for global trade; wealth that can contribute toward a wealthier and more prosperous world market.
The ACD shall be a forum for Asia to pool its inner strengths to create an environment of win-win state of affairs. Such environment must benefit, albeit in different proportions, all Asian states, rich or poor. In the end, that environment must benefit the world at large. No one shall stand to lose.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There is a very archaic presumption that Asia, as a continent, is composed of too many nations, too many diverse economies, to be able to achieve anything together. In the corporate world, there was also once an archaic idea that the best corporation is one that is vertically integrated.
In the modern world, however, we know that such a large and cumbersome corporation is too slow to move and to adapt itself. Corporations today have turned to out-sourcing and diversification. Each corporation now has many independent, highly creative companies within the parent corporation.
The same applies in the case of a continent. Asia is like a giant holding company with many diversified entities, each with its own individuality and creativity. The uniqueness of each Asian entity, when combined, becomes an enormous asset for Asia as a whole. Through our diversity, we are able to create great flexibility of response and greater strengths for one another.
It only remains for us to recognize this possibility together. As major corporations have begun to downsize and to stop their vertical integration, all of us should also move towards horizontal integration, each creating our own unique products, while working together to combine our strengths and utilizing the new economic principles of speed and diversification.
Distinguished Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me emphasize that the ACD, as we see it, shall be a form of cooperation that is not based on creating another bloc of nations. The ACD shall be a commitment for each Asian country to pool our strengths for cooperation in the fields and areas that they are most comfortable with and most likely to benefit from. The ACD shall be a process that involves active participation of the people, cooperation between nations as well as cooperation between peoples.
The ACDs objective is to strengthen Asia for both Asia itself and the world at large, to strengthen Asia so that each and individual country will become a strong market for intra-Asian trade and for global trade, and to make poverty in Asia no longer a major obstacle to development. But at the same time, Asia must realize also that while the ACD could create strategic partnerships, Asia is also in need of a healthy world trade system. In any market, it is not uncommon that the stronger will play the dominant role in dictating the state of the market. The international regulatory market regime is no exception. Nevertheless, while some global trade partners may become more powerful than others, the call for free flow of goods, free and fair regulatory regime of the international trade system is now universal. A regime of free and fair trade that is transparent for all will create a healthy trade environment. A stronger Asia will enable us to play a more active role than ever before in ensuring a fair regulatory regime of the world market. An Asia with renewed strength and enhanced capacity will make the global free trade regime beneficial to all partners.
Distinguished Ministers,
The future of the ACD depends very much not only on Governments but on our people. To realize the objectives of the ACD, business practitioners, academicians, non-governmental organizations and people from all walks of life must be involved. To this end, the Boao Forum under the ingenuity of President Jiang Zemin could be most valuable in serving as a parallel track to provide exchanges views on Asian cooperation among all sectors.
The ACD must serve as an evolving process towards creating a region-wide strategic partnership. The nature of our strategic partnership of cooperation can be so diverse. It is hoped that such multiple layers of strategic partnerships and collaborative networks throughout the region will eventually bring about a strong Asia, with a fully regained self-confidence.
In the coming years, Asia will face many more challenges, both positive and negative. We cannot wait to simply react to such challenges. Complacency is the worst enemy of success. We must prepare ourselves and make things happen. After all, opportunities will fully benefit only those who are well prepared. In twenty or thirty years time, I feel confident that we will look back to today with pride.
Thailand is but a small country, but the reason we are bold enough to initiate this important undertaking is simply because the initiative comes straight from the heart. It is an initiative borne of my awareness of Asias once prosperous past and the fact that Asia today has started to lag behind other regions despite our enormous potential. I am fully convinced that it is within our power to return to our former days of prosperity by combining our diverse strengths for one anothers benefit. We may succeed or we may fail, but at least we shall have tried.
To be sure, the ACD process is an open and inclusive one. While the countries meeting today are from the Asian region, our goal is to strengthen Asia, not only for ourselves but for the entire world, which we are an integral part of. By strengthening ourselves, we are also strengthening our partners in other regions of the globe.
I must add that this was the very same message that I conveyed to U.S. President George W. Bush and European Commission President Romano Prodi when I met with them and informed them about the ACD initiative even before it was finalized. I was delighted that both leaders fully understood and concurred with me about the importance of strengthening our regional cooperation.
On this note, please allow me to express our appreciation once more to the far-sightedness of the Asian Heads of Government and their respective Governments, who share the vision for the better and the stronger Asia, to make Asia stronger for the better and the best of the world, and for the making of this new chapter of Asian history and of the world. They are the Kingdom of Bahrain, the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, Brunei Darussalam, the Kingdom of Cambodia, the Peoples Republic of China, the Republic of India, the Republic of Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Lao Peoples Democratic Republic, Malaysia, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Republic of the Philippines, the State of Qatar, the Republic of Singapore and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
The Inaugural Asia Cooperation Dialogue meeting today marks a small step of a long and important journey ahead. As an Asian proverb goes A ten thousand-mile journey always begins with a small step.
Let us take that step together today.
Let us begin the journey towards the future of peace and prosperity of Asia for Asia and for the world.
*******
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